Next round of Ukraine-EU talks on creation of free trade zone to be held in December in Kyiv, says deputy economy minister.
Brussels, October 10 (Interfax-Ukraine) – Brussels and Kyiv are moving forward in the talks on the creation of a free trade zone, and the next round of the talks would take place in Kyiv on December 7, and there is a preliminary agreement on the holding of another two rounds.
Ukrainian Deputy Economy Minister Valeriy Piatnitsky gave the information in an interview with the press after the eighth round of the talks in Brussels on October 10.
“There is a preliminary agreement on another two rounds – for the first week of March and the middle of May,” he said.
The deputy minister said that the talks are at the stage of detail discussion.
The sides also almost finished discussing customs cooperation and improvement of the trade conditions.
“New topics under discussion are transparency and settling of disputes. We also made a step forward in understanding biosecurity requirements, as the issue is very complicated,” he said.
Piatnitsky said that the issue of geographical notions is a difficult one.
“We’ll study how a mechanism of objections regarding certain geographical notions, which exist and have been registered in the European Union, works. We need to learn and create certain mechanism now,” he said.
He expressed confidence that the task of Ukraine is not to sign the agreement at any price.
“We have certain national interests, and first these are the interests of economic operators. The agreement should be ratified,” he said.
